src/markdowns/about/en.md
# About this tool
_The Good, The Bad and The Accountant_ aims at teaching journalists and their audience about the intricacies of corruption in local budgets. It is the interactive counterpart to [Cooking Budgets](http://cookingbudgets.com/), a series of tutorials on how corruption works in Europe.
The choices you have to make in _The Good, The Bad and The Accountant_ can involve active or passive corruption. This does not mean that all civil servants are corrupt. But it does mean that corruption is a systemic issue. Anyone working near large contracts, public or private, has dealt or will deal with officials using their position to serve a third party. As we show in the tool, dealing with corruption cannot mean to simply refuse it. Refusing it might lead to conflicts with other stakeholders.
# Why this tool?
Several studies from [Sweden](http://www.nordicacademicpress.com/bok/a-clean-house/), the [Netherlands](http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-01839-3_19), [Québec](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charbonneau_Commission) and [Germany](https://www.amazon.de/Korruption-Deutschland-Portrait-einer-Wachstumsbranche/dp/3406510663) have shown that corruption is a systemic problem. In most countries of the European Union, corruption is rarely seen as such. Officials, private companies and citizens tend to accept corrupt practices as the normal way to do business, or, when an outrageous case appears, describe it as an isolated incident.
This is a problem because, since the 1980's, the opportunities for corruption increased greatly. The externalization of public services and transfers of people between public and private sectors dramatically increased the number of situations where a risk of corruption arises. If the share of corrupt people remained constant, this means that the total amount of corruption in the European Union increased.
In order for citizens and public officials to better address corruption, it is necessary for them to gain a better understanding of the issue. By delving into the actual mechanisms of corruption, this tool and the associated tutorials of [Cooking Budgets](http://cookingbudgets.com/) enable users to up their expertise on the topic.
# How it works
Users have to make decisions based on questions. Several variables help them make choices. City financials tell them how much money the city collects each year (**resources**) and spends (**expenditure**), while **reserves** tell the user how much money the city has in the bank.
**Political rejection** increases with unpopular decisions, **industry mistrust** increases when the user makes choices that contractors don’t like and **legal risk** increases when the user does something illegal.
After each choice, there is a (risk / 20) probability of triggering a _game over_ of the type related to the risk. E.g if **legal risk** is 9, user has 9 chance out of 20 to be arrested by the police at the next step.
This tool is part of <strong><a target="_blank" href="http://openbudgets.eu/">OpenBudgets.eu</a>: Fighting Corruption with Fiscal Transparency</strong>, a consortium that includes <a target="_blank" href="https://okfn.org/">Open Knowledge</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://okfn.de/">Open Knowledge Germany</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://okfn.gr/">Open Knowledge Greece</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.iais.fraunhofer.de/en.html">Fraunhofer IAIS</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.uni-bonn.de/">University of Bonn</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.civio.es/en/">CIVIO</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://transparency.eu//">Transparency Int. EU</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism%2B%2B">Journalism++</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.vse.cz/english/">University of Economics - Prague</a>.
# Want to help ?
We would be extremely happy if you could help translate the game or contribute to [Cooking Budgets](http://cookingbudgets.com/) by adding examples of local corruption.
Contact us at chef@cookingbudgets.com
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<td><img proton-src="./images/logos/eu-flag.jpg" name="European Union flag" width="100px" border="0"></td>
<td>This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programe under grant agreement 645833</td>
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